Quinn
roared and launched off the bed of flora.
The
colorful cloud above him exploded sending myriad petals and demi-fae to flight
on the air. Airborne, Quinn rushed Merry. Or, not Merry, but Sadb. Or, maybe
not Sadb, but her vision of him, or her projection of him, or her... whatever.
In the blink of an
eye, Merry found himself on his back in his overgrown backyard. Air whooshed
from his lungs as a gravely injured Quinn landed on him. Merry struggled to
regain his breath as a multicolored demi-fae and petals rained down around
them. Everything was überclear, garishly colored, and painfully bright. Enough
to make Merry squint and want to shield his eyes as he would from the sun. And
everything was three-dimensional, as if he were seeing through the glasses they
gave you to watch a 3D movie. Maybe he was still seeing through Sadb’s eyes.
“Curse ye, Sadb!”
Quinn’s voice thundered loud enough to leave Merry deaf in one ear.
Sadb shuddered and
quivered, truly stricken by Quinn’s curse, and her flight became a chaotic
zigzag through the air.
Quinn’s rage shot
up Merry’s spine and he was afraid Quinn would change into his other form right
on top of him. He wasn’t afraid of Quinn, not at all, but he didn’t want a
monster on top of him either. My boyfriend, the monster. Talk about
awkward in the extreme. “Quinn!” Merry eked out. “Don’t curse her!” His
shout was nothing but a murmur.
Blind with fury,
Quinn didn’t hear Merry. “How dare ye risk me Merry’s sight!”
“I did not, sire!
I use me mind’s eye to shield he vision! I swear it!” she shrieked as she
zinged past Quinn sending a lock of his hair to flight in her wake.
“Quinn!” Merry
tried again, but Quinn’s weight made it impossible to take in enough air to
speak.
“Ye mind’s eye not
be strong enough to shield one such as Merry!” Quinn raised himself on hands
and arms and Merry took a huge breath before Quinn slumped back onto him,
shoving air from his lungs again.
“I be, sire! I
be!” Sadb shrieked back.
“Quinn!” Merry
tried again, to no avail.
“Ye not have an
inkling of what ye spake!” Quinn roared at her.
Now, deaf in the
other ear, Merry could think of only one thing to do. Quinn! Stop! I’m
okay! But I can’t breathe with you on top of me! he shouted in his
mind.
Quinn stopped
yelling at Sadb long enough to look down at Merry.
I’m fine, but I
can’t breathe! You must get off me! Merry thought hard.
Quinn rolled off
Merry in an instant, but cried out when he landed on his shredded wing.
Like an arrow, Quinn’s
pain-filled cry struck Sadb in the back and carried her aloft. She hit the tree
stump in the mist and fell to the ground, still.
Merry gulped air
as he sat up and looked down at Quinn. “Y-you okay?” he breathed.
Quinn’s emerald
eyes looked up at him, all glimmer lost, and Merry knew he wasn’t okay. AT. ALL. He reached a hand
out and Quinn took it. Indescribable pain instantly crashed over Merry’s senses
and he gasped, right before the sensation of pain cut off and Quinn passed out.
Merry thought it
hurt bad when Rick beat him up, but it was nothing like this. He’d never
imagined such excruciating pain and wondered how Quinn withstood it. Well,
obviously he couldn’t. He passed out. “Lady Sadb! Help me! Quinn’s really
hurt!”
He received no
response. “Lady Sadb!” he called again. Nothing
Something pinched
the hand he leaned on and he looked down. It was another demi-fae. A guy one.
His wings were as vibrant green as Sabd’s were vivid yellow, and a long parade
of demi-fae arced the air behind him. With Merry’s vision all screwy, they
looked like a brilliant rainbow of stars, their colors startling and almost too
bright to look at.
“Beidh muid ag
cabhrú leat!” the small guy shouted.
The fairy’s voice
was surprisingly deep for a small guy, er, fairy, and Merry had no idea what “beg
me-add egg cowroo leth” meant.
“Cabhrú le.”
The demi-fae gestured as if to lift something.
Cowroo leh? “You
mean help me?”
The man nodded.
“Lift him?”
He nodded again.
Merry looked to
the backyards that bordered his and thanked his lucky stars that Quinn’s
thunderous accusations hadn’t roused the neighbors from their beds in the
middle of the night
“Yeah, okay, let’s
get him into the house,” Merry whispered fiercely.
The demi-fae
swarmed Quinn en masse and lifted him into the air.
Merry quickly
stood and moved to open the door. “Down the hall to the left. Put him on my
bed.” He bent to lift Quinn’s one good wing to keep it from dragging on the
ground as they carried him down the hall. It was soft, a frail green-tinted
velveteen in his hands, yet it was as clear as glass.
Merry watched as
the demi-fae deftly turned Quinn in the air and laid him on the bed on his
stomach. That was when Merry saw Quinn’s front. It was a red ruin to match his
back. He fought to remain calm in his escalating panic. “What happened to his
chest?”
The guy demi-fae
was grim. “An Bhanríon pionós a ghearradh air.”
“Don’t any of you
speak English?” Merry demanded in frustration.
“Ah!” Pain shot
through Merry’s skull and he gripped the sides of his head with his hands.
“Ye understand we
now?”
“Yeah.” Man,
that hurt. “What happened to Quinn’s chest?”
“We Queen punish
‘im.”
Merry was
incredulous. “She did that because he didn’t answer her call fast enough?”
“Aye.”
Merry looked down at Quinn. His one shredded wing lay sodden with blood, a
mountain of red lace at his side. The other wing now wafted slowly above him.
The brief glance Merry had in the cavern hadn’t told him how large Quinn’s
wings were. Merry supposed they trailed the floor behind him when he stood. He
reached out to touch Quinn’s back then hesitated, not wanting to
accidentally hurt him. “Is there anything we can do for him?”
“Queen Muirgan
take he ability to heal for such a time it be long in returnin’. Well, as so, we
tend ‘im ‘til he be right to heal heself.”
Merry cursed the
Queen silently. “What can I do?”
“Ye bring water,
and flower from ye garden. Many flower be grand. More color, more fine he be.”
Merry tapped his
foot impatiently and surveyed the flowers in the backyard as he waited for tap
water to fill his mom’s largest salad bowl. There were tons of flowers to
choose from and he wondered if any might be better or worse for Quinn. When the
bowl ran over, he turned the tap off and carried the bowl to his room, careful to
spill as little as possible in the process. He set it on the milk-crate desk.
“Are there some flowers that are better for him?”
The demi-fae
looked at him blankly, and he was certain his ignorance was plain on his face.
“I-I mean, like,
stronger?”
“Nay, lad. They
all be as kind to ‘im as he be to ‘em. Bring as many as ye can carry.”
Merry quickly grabbed
a brown paper grocery bag from their small pantry, a scissor, and returned to
the backyard. The whole vision thing made the foliage loom large at him, a
hallucination a thousand times more brilliant than it was in real life. He
steeled himself against the Alice in Wonderland feeling, and
collected brightly colored pansies, irises, orchids, and roses—and didn’t care
that thorns pierced his fingers and palms. He didn't know how Quinn could stand
such incredible pain and wanted him healed as fast as hu—fairily possible.
As he neared the misty corner of the backyard, he heard a tiny shriek.
“Get ye cursed
hands off me, ye foul thing!”
It was Sadb and he
only now remembered that she had crashed into the tree stump and fallen to the
ground. He walked to the stump and found her little, scraped-and-bruised form
sitting in the grass, one wing lying terribly askew.
She slapped at the
other demi-fae. “Away with ye!”
The demi-fae shot
away, narrowly avoiding the slap. “Lady Sadb, allow me to help ye to ye feet,
at least,” he pled.
“Ye be foul! Ye
not touch me with ye unclean hand!” she shrieked.
Merry glanced back
at the house. He needed to get back to Quinn and didn’t have time for this. He
squatted next to them. “Lady Sadb? Are you hurt?”
“Not matter if I
be! I not want an unclean one to touch me!
Unclean? Merry
looked at the demi-fae. He looked a little freaky like all the others he’d
seen, but he didn’t have horns or a tai—Oh, he has a tail....
And he had kind of a glittery-sugary thing happening. As brilliant and sparkly
as he was, he had this whole... well, a whole kinda reddish-bug-thing going on
that made Sadb look tame. Like, maybe to an extreme. And his wings weren’t soft
and fluttery like those of a butterfly. They were thin and clear with veins—pulsing veins—running
through them and were a
little creepy. Okay, yeah, he was a little freakier than the others were. “Hi,”
Merry ventured.
The sugary guy
gave a brief bow. “Nolan an Dearg, at ye service.”
“Merry. Nice to
meet you,” Merry offered in return.
“Aye, I know of
ye.”
“Ye know nothin’
of the sort!” Sadb shrieked.
Merry winced at
the sound of Sadb’s high-pitched voice and frowned. “What’s wrong,
Lady Sadb?”
“Can ye not see,
human? He be dragon!”
Dragon? Merry
studied the little guy. Ohhhh. Dragon. Yeah, he had a dragonfly
thing going on. Merry didn’t find anything wrong with that. He loved
dragonflies. “So, what?”
She gaped it him.
“Ye be daft? He be unclean!”
Merry shook his
head ever so slightly, irritated. He didn’t have time for this. “Here.” He set
an open palm next to her.
She glanced at
Nolan before dragging herself into his palm.
“Do you need help?”
he asked Nolan.
“Nay, I be
well. I wait in ye garden for all o’ they ‘til we prince be mended.”
“Come inside with
us.”
Nolan waved his
hands at Merry but, before he could speak, Sadb shrieked again.
“Nay, nay! Ye not
permit such a thing in ye home!”
Merry was angry
now, and he did not have time for this. “C’mon, Nolan. Follow
me,” he said as he stood.
Nolan waved his
hands again. “I remain in ye garden.”
Half out of his
mind with worry, Merry acquiesced. “You sure?”
“Aye. Plenty
o’ flower t’keep me company.”
“Okay. I’ll be
back.
Nolan suddenly
flew to a dandelion, plucked it, and brought it to Merry. “She spores help we prince
mend.”
Seriously?
“Aye. She
healin’ take to the air. Best to mend we prince’s wing,” he confirmed.
Okay, this little
sugary dragon guy could read his mind, too.
“Ye not say we
secrets! Be forbidden!” Sadb shrieked.
Merry wanted to
choke her as he took it gently from Nolan and added it to the bag of flowers.
“How many does he need for his wing? It looks—” Hot tears suddenly stung
Merry’s eyes. “He’s really hurt.”
“Ye take ye flora
to ‘im and I collect ye many dandiflies ‘til ye return.” The guy nodded rapidly,
clearly pleased to be called into service.
“Thanks.” Merry
sped to the door, carefully holding Sadb to his chest so he didn’t drop her. He
couldn’t help but look back at the dragon fae. He looked alone and lonely, much
like Merry often felt. “It was nice meeting you!” he called back.
Nolan rose in the
air and gave him a dragonfly salute with the tip of a veined, cellophane wing.
Merry lifted the hand
that held the bag of flowers and gave him a salute in return.
“Ye not do such a
thing!” Sadb scoffed.
Shut up! Merry
thought.
The look of
indignation on her face told Merry that she’d heard his thought.
Oops.
“Here.” Merry set
the bag of flowers next to the bowl of water on his desk. “Nolan said the
dandelion is good for his wing.”
Every demi-fae in
the room turned to him, all eyes now too large in their tiny faces. They looked
stricken.
Uh-Oh, looks like little Nolan be in trouble, let's hope Merry can keep him safe :-)
ReplyDeletePoor Nolan. It's not his fault he be dragon! Sadb can be a bit of a PITA. :)
DeleteThis story only gets better. You have a real talent for writing fantasy like this. I can see the fae and the things happening. It is wonderful. It really did lift my spirits. I need a few fae right now.
ReplyDelete:D Thank you, Damian. I truly enjoy writing fantasy and often wish I lived in some of my stories! And I'm so glad it put a smile on your face. Thanks for dropping by. It's always great to see you here!
Delete"Quinn" wanted to choke her as he took the flower from Nolan? I'm confused... I'm thinking you meant Merry, right?
ReplyDeleteThis is Lis btw...
DeleteAdoring you, Lis, for always keeping me straight... er, you know what I mean. <3
DeleteOh Nolan! Why don't the other demi-fae see you as you really are??? Nolan is so brave to face the others so he can help Quinn. Or does he have an ulterior motive? :(
ReplyDeletePins and needles here waiting for the next chapter!
Thanks Cody for the great story!
LOL. I must say, Kerry, it really puts a smile on my face when I see you guys try to guess. :D Thanks for dropping by. It's always GREAT to see you here. <3
DeleteWonderful chapter Cody! Going to read the next one. Ye be a writin' fiend, ye be!
ReplyDeleteROFL! Thank you, Shira! I'm glad you're enjoying the story. I be off to write more of me Fairy!
Delete